Paul Binder and Michael Christensen came to the MobileBooth at Lincoln Center to tell the about their adventures that lead to starting the Big Apple Circus. The two longtime friends met as mimes in San Francisco. Then, while taking a road trip together, they paid their gas juggling on the street. That led them to pack their rucksacks, juggle on streets and pass the hat from England to Istanbul.  They made their living with juggling acts in many countries with many charming bad accents. Juggling in Paris, they were asked to join to the Nouveau Cirque du Paris. Michael remembers their first weeks as members of the circus.  “I have pictures of the early shows where you and I are running into the ring. It is the kind of picture where you are look into the dictionary, you see ‘happiness’ and there is that picture.”

After a trip back to New York, Paul proposed that they start a circus of their own in New York City. The circus is now about to celebrate its 32nd year. Michael, or Mr. Stubs, played for many years the hobo clown down on his luck. Michael, up until this last year, was the circus’ director and ringmaster. Their families grew up in the circus. Paul’s kids did all of their schooling on the road in the One Ring School House. Twenty-two years ago, the pair started  Clown Care, a program that integrates circus entertainers into childrens hospitals all over the country. They have seen the transformative impact the circus has on people. After the first act, “people are shimmering,” said Michael.

“At the circus, the audience leaves behind the woes of society, at least for a moment.” said Paul.

“We followed our heart. We followed our own joy. It [the circus] was challenging but not once did we look at each other and say let’s throw in the clown towel… Still after all these years there is that same sense of delight and wonder,” said Michael.

Although StoryCorps’ offices are located in Brooklyn, and we have a permanent StoryBooth at Foley Square in Lower Manhattan, this month the StoryCorps MobileBooth is in the midst of its first ever visit to New York City. A MobileBooth is an Airstream trailer outfitted with a recording studio that travels the country year-round collecting stories.

Since our arrival last week, we have heard love stories in Central Park, long gone delis of the neighborhood, the first days of Lincoln Center, the busker beginnings of a circus, and the rise of the Upper West Side skyline. We have heard from dancers, opera singers, student scientists, accountants, lawyers, writers, composers, teachers, mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, computer programmers, unemployed people, nurses, doctors, therapists, trekkies, and many more to come to come.

Like the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words. At the Museum of Modern Art, that same picture can spark a thousand memories. As part of its Meet Me at MoMA outreach program, the museum partnered with StoryCorps’ Memory Loss Initiative to assist its regular and most faithful visitors in capturing their lives’ most influential moments.

Throughout the afternoon, eight conversations were recorded on four StoryKits, affectionately known as our “recording studio in a briefcase,” between those living with Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia and their family members and friends. A mother told her son of her part in the World War II war effort as an inspector for a parachute factory. A husband and wife remembered the family portrait drawn for them by their son. A niece chatted with her aunt about how she’d like to be remembered by the rest of their family. The scope of discussions was as bright and diverse as MoMA’s collection of pop art, and continued well after the recorders were stopped, spilling into its Metropolitan Garden reception.

Since 2006, StoryCorps’ Memory Loss Initiative has collected hundreds of recordings to support and encourage people with memory loss to share their stories. Our collaboration with MoMA was an innovative first for both organizations, whose programming invites the participation of Alzheimer’s groups and populations by providing much-needed creative space and flexibility. Hopefully, this is only the beginning.

To reserve your StoryKit through our Memory Loss Initiative, visit us at www.storycorps.org/initiatives/mli.

If you’ve ever considered yourself a “buff” on a subject (film buff, Civil War buff, oral history buff), you can attribute that term to the buff-colored uniforms worn by firefighting enthusiasts who volunteered for New York City’s firehouses during the 1920s. Dan Andrews, a buff for the FDNY during the 1960s, and his long-time friend, Manny Fernandez, who drove engines at the same firehouse, came to our Lower Manhattan StoryBooth to remember their days on the job, the firefighters they so admired, and one fire they want never to be forgotten.

_{Dan Andrews (left) and Manny Fernandez at StoryCorps in New York City.}

“It was a time in New York City when firehouse doors were always open,” Dan recalled with nostalgia. “They were a real part of the community.” Dan and Manny shared fond memories of touring New Yorkers and their children around the engines and providing them with fire safety tips. They also remembered working under the guidance of what Dan remembers as “a great group of men. It was like a brotherhood. We would go down there every night, pal around. We had a great admiration for them.”

On the night of October 17th, 1966, Manny was preparing himself some peppers and eggs in the firehouse kitchen when he heard the ringing of the bell that in those days signified a fire. At the sound of that bell, the firefighters (“firemen” back then) would “jump into their boots and get ready to roll” and Manny would drive the engine to the scene. Their destination on that night was East 23rd Street, just outside a shop called Wonder Drug.

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Just before the holidays, Facilitator Michael Brodlieb and I visited the Bronx Library Center to do interviews with members of the Bronx River Alliance. Our first participant was Ruth Anderberg, who started the project to uncover the Bronx River. When she began her work there were few accessible sections of the river in the Bronx, and the parts you could see were overflowing with junk. Anderberg and many others have since cleaned up the river and continue to work on its greenway.

The organization now umbrellas many inspiring projects. For more info, or to schedule a canoe trip with these incredible people, visit www.bronxriver.org

Last week the Door-to-Door department visited Sandy Ground Historical Society in Staten Island, New York. The Society is a small, over-flowing museum of artifacts that document the Sandy Ground settlement, the oldest community of free slaves in North America.

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On Monday, November 17th, the Lower Manhattan StoryBooth opened its doors to the public, inviting area organizations and passersby to learn more about the StoryCorps project and tour the StoryBooth.

Visitors were offered donut holes, hot cider, and literature on StoryCorps and our upcoming National Day of Listening. Eight inviteesóthe Museum of Chinese in America, South Street Seaport Museum, National Parks Service, African Burial Ground, Tsingtao, Charles Wang Health Center, Eldridge Street Synagogue, NYPDóand about four times as many curious pedestrians stopped long enough to hear a StoryCorps pitch, add their names to our mailing list, and treat their ears to some New York stories. We witnessed the fruits of our labor right away when a NYC Parks & Recreation employee was spotted spreading the word to people on the opposite side of the park.

StoryCorps’ Community Outreach department partners with organizations all over New York to bring the StoryCorps experience to their members and to collect the stories of a diverse cross-section of our city. One recent partnership is with Other Countries, a peer-facilitated workshop for black gay men, founded in the 1980s during the height of the Black Gay Arts Movement.

I facilitated an interview at our Brooklyn office. Afterwards NYC Outreach Coordinator Andre Lancaster (himself a writer/playwright), hosted a clip-focused writing workshop where Other Countries writers listened to StoryCorps Griot interviews.

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On Monday, May 19, StoryCorps visited with and collected stories from residents of Menorah Home and Hospital. Menorah is a rehab and care facility that sits on 10 oceanfront acres in Brooklyn’s Manhattan Beach. Nancy Sondag, director of therapeutic recreation for Menorah, coordinated our visit and participated in interviewing residents. During the day residents enjoy gazing out onto the gardens and ocean views, participating in creative projects such as ceramic, sculpting and painting, visiting with family and friends and, taking in some of the special events and performances that happen throughout the day. While we were there, magician Rene Gonzalez performed for residents in the grand auditorium.

Enjoy the slide show. Click on a photo for more information.

On April 16, 2008 StoryCorps facilitators Mike Rauch and Brianna Hyneman visited Clove Lakes Health & Rehabilitation Center, a short and long term nursing and rehabilitation center in Staten Island, New York.

Clove Lakes Social Service Secretary, Meaghan McKeon hosted us for the day as residents added their stories to the archive of New York oral history. Many of the participants that we listened to were raised in the Staten Island area during the depression. They talked about the solidarity of their communities, the families they raised and, their work from eighty years of crochet beading in the garment district to being a gunner in the Battle of the Bulge during World War II. Clove Lakes honors their residents’ stories and preserves some of the community they all share. On the day we visited, Staten Island’s and Clove Lakes’ oldest resident, Winifred Flynn, celebrated her 104th birthday with a large reception in the grand entrance.

Enjoy the slideshow. Click an image for more information.